A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – The White House offered some support for a bill that would slash Palestinian Authority funding over terrorist salaries Monday, but said the administration would work with Congress to ensure the legislation does not interfere with attempts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

On Thursday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed the Taylor Force Act after marking up the bill to guarantee funding for security cooperation with Israel and humanitarian aid would not be touched, attempting to calm worries that the effort could harm ties with Ramallah.

“President Trump has made it clear that he believes the Palestinian program that provides financial support to Palestinians convicted of acts of terror or their families incentivizes terrorism and must end,” a White House official told The Times of Israel on Monday, and that “American taxpayer dollars should not be used in a way that even indirectly supports terror.” [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Democrats and some Republicans are fighting attempts by President Trump to label payments to insurers for lowering deductibles for poor people as “bailouts.”

The pushback could play a key role in landing enough political support for a short-term bipartisan deal to stabilize Obamacare’s exchanges, including making the insurer payments. Lawmakers and experts say the cost-sharing reduction payments to lower deductibles and co-pays, known as CSRs, are honoring an agreement to reimburse Obamacare insurers and are not bailouts.

Trump has shown little interest in a bipartisan healthcare package after the Senate’s narrow defeat of legislation to partially repeal and replace Obamacare late last month. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress are poised to stand in the way of lifting the nation’s borrowing limit next month, increasing the chances of real problems for House and Senate leaders as they try to increase the debt ceiling by an end-of-September deadline.

House and Senate conservatives have long insisted that debt ceiling increases be accompanied by spending reforms, and that hasn’t changed this year, even under a Republican president who is insisting on a “clean” debt ceiling increase.

The House Freedom Caucus, a conservative bloc of more than three dozen GOP lawmakers, has signaled it wants spending cuts in exchange for supporting a debt ceiling increase, but at minimum will push for reforms to how federal dollars are spent as the debt ceiling approaches. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – In the New Testament, Bethsaida is a place of miracles. Here, Jesus cured a blind man, turned a few loaves and fishes into food for 5,000, and walked on water. But mysteriously, its location was lost. Now, dueling archaeological excavations place it in the same vicinity on the northern bank of the Sea of Galilee, but at slightly different locations.

Based on the recent discovery of a Roman-era bathhouse in the Bethsaida Valley Nature Reserve, a Haaretz report this week trumpeted “The Lost Home of Jesus’ Apostles Has Just Been Found, Archaeologists Say.” Its location, according to the article, is el-Araj, one of three sites historically debated by scholars.

Known in the New Testament as Bethsaida, the location is the birthplace of three of Jesus’s apostles — Peter, Andrew and Philip. Aside from New Testament accounts, its history was chronicled solely by the Jewish leader Josephus Flavius, who recorded that Herod’s son Philip Herod turned the fishing village into a Roman polis called Julias after the mother of the Roman Emperor Tiberius Livia Drusilla, aka Julia Augusta. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Last week, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan provoked the ire of many progressives when he urged the Democrats to court pro-life candidates if they are to have any hope of retaking the 24 House seats they need for a majority.

“There is not a litmus test for Democratic candidates,” Lujan told The Hill.

His plea met with an instant rebuke from progressives. Fourteen groups – from the National Abortion Rights Action League to Move-On Political Action to Emily’s List to The Daily Kos – issued a Statement of Principles which read, in part: “policies that limit access to abortion and force medically unnecessary procedures are oppressive to women, especially low-income women and women of color.” [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Illegal immigrant families received nearly $1.3 billion in Los Angeles County welfare money during 2015 and 2016, nearly one-​quarter of the amount spent on the county’s entire needy population, according to data obtained by Fox News.

The data was obtained from the county Department of Public Social Services — which is responsible for doling out the benefits — and gives a snapshot of the financial costs associated with sanctuary and related policies.

The sanctuary county of Los Angeles is an illegal immigration epicenter, with the largest concentration of any county ​in the nation, according to a study from the Migration Policy Institute. ​The county also allows illegal immigrant parents with children born in the United States to seek welfare and food stamp benefits. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Almost one month after it was disclosed that former President Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice was unmasking members of President Trump’s team and other Americans, Trump’s own national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, sent an official letter giving her unfettered and continuing access to classified information and waiving her “need-to-know” requirement on anything she viewed or received during her tenure, Circa has confirmed.

The undated and unclassified letter from McMaster was sent in the mail to Rice’s home during the last week of April. Trump was not aware of the letter or McMaster’s decision, according to two senior West Wing officials and an intelligence official, who spoke to Circa on condition that they not be named.

“I hereby waive the requirement that you must have a ‘need-to-know’ to access any classified information contained in items you ‘originated, reviewed, signed or received while serving,’ as National Security Adviser,” the letter said. The letter also states that the “NSC will continue to work with you to ensure the appropriate security clearance documentation remains on file to allow you access to classified information.” [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – College Park, Md. is weighing whether to allow illegal immigrants to vote in local elections.

Officials in College Park, which is home to the University of Maryland’s main campus, have yet to make their final decision, the Baltimore Sun reports.

The measure’s sponsor, City Councilwoman Christine Nagle, said it would be good for non-citizens living in the city to make decisions regarding local services. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Evangelical supporters of President Donald Trump on Monday requested a meeting with Pope Francis over a recent critical article in a Vatican-vetted journal.

Johnnie Moore, a leader of Trump’s evangelical advisory board and a spokesman for some of its members, said he sent the request to Rome in response to an article published last month that accused some American Catholics of building an alliance of “hate” with evangelicals who backed the president.

The two authors of the piece are confidants of Francis. They published their article in the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica, which is reviewed by the Vatican Secretariat of State. [ Source: US News and World Report (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – U.S. consumer credit-card debt just passed an ominous milestone, beating a record set just before the global financial system almost collapsed in 2008.

Outstanding card loans reached $1.02 trillion in June, data from the Federal Reserve show, as lenders including Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. compete to sign up cardholders who may carry balances — a relatively lucrative business in a prolonged period of low interest rates.

The bet is that this time it won’t end so badly. In 2008, a drop in home prices spiraled into a global financial meltdown, and after the jobless rate surged toward 10 percent, banks wrote off more than $100 billion in credit-card loans over the next two years. [ Source (Read More…) ]